


On The Inside

by lucdarling



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Murder, Prison, Vigilantism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:33:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23464747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucdarling/pseuds/lucdarling
Summary: Billy has a new cellmate and from the sounds of the other guys, a real pretty one.He doesn't expect it to be someone he knows, not in this place fit for murders and thieves.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove & Maxine "Max" Mayfield, Billy Hargrove & Steve Harrington
Comments: 16
Kudos: 62
Collections: Round 2: Murder Boy/girl-friends





	1. Cellmate

**Author's Note:**

> Written for round 2 of Horroscopes "murder boyfriends/husbands."  
> I also chose Capricorn (disciplined, purple, knees, bones).

Billy can hear the catcalls start from the lower levels, and swings his body off his bunk. It sounds like his new cell mate will be real pretty. He wonders if he’s fresh meat or brought up from juvie.

The guard comes first, yelling that Billy had better be facing the wall like this wasn't the first time he'd gone through this rigmarole. 

He faces the wall as he was told because Billy Hargrove isn't the same angry young man he'd been in the years he and his friends had run the town. He bets his high school friends would be surprised to see him so disciplined.

The door rolls open with a clank of metal, barely louder than the hoots and hollers of the other men. Billy smiles even as his nose pressed against cinderblock.

He sees out of the corner of his eye brown hair and wide eyes. Billy chuckles, which made the guard shout.

"I'm behaving," Billy snaps, spreading his fingers against the rough wall. "Can't do much here, not even I'm that good." He tunes out the guard's muttering and addresses his new cellmate. "Top bunk's mine, Bambi."

"Got it," the man says as the guard backed out of the cell. His voice is deeper than Billy expected would belong to someone so thin. Billy takes a step back from the wall and shakes his arms out as the door rolled shut. 

The voices of everyone else fade away as he turns to look at the fish he's stuck with for the foreseeable future. His breath catches. "Harrington?"

The man coughs. "Good to see you, Billy. It's been a while."

“Didn’t expect to see you in here,” Billy says, lifting himself onto his bunk and letting his legs dangle over the edge. He swings them back and forth in the air, nearly hitting the other man.

Steve throws his armful of basics at the foot of his bed and hops up next to him. Their shoulders brush and Steve is still as warm as Billy remembers.

“How’s Max?” Steve asks, voice soft.

“Comes every other month when she’s got the gas money saved up.” Billy answers, just as quiet. 

He doesn’t deserve her in his life, tells her that every time she comes and takes a seat at the bare table across from him. “Put her on your visitor’s list, I’m sure she wouldn’t mind looking at your ugly mug.”

“The last thing I am is ugly,” Steve chuckles. “These assholes won’t hardly let me forget it.” He jerks his thumb at the gauntlet he’d been marched through not ten minutes earlier.

Billy tries to stifle the feeling of protectiveness that claws up his belly to roost in his heart. “They’ll get over it real quick, princess. Just stick close to me.”

“So you can be my daddy on the inside?” Steve’s eyebrow lifts. “You know this isn’t my first, it’s just a longer sentence this time around.”

“Glad you could make it out to California,” Billy jokes, because that's all he can do while his mind whirls. “The accommodations are swell.”

He doesn’t ask what Steve’s in for, not until the third month when they’re both finally back in the same cell. Billy’s jaw is turning purple and blue, and Steve’s holding his ribs gingerly so clearly something happened when Billy was in the SHU. It’s nothing that a bit of retribution won’t fix and two kings should certainly be able to fight their way to the top of the shitheap they’re locked in with. Billy's almost looking forward to it, he misses the fire King Steve had inside him, it's been so long since he saw even a flicker.

It’s dark, lights out called hours earlier but Billy knows that Steve isn’t asleep on the bunk under him.

“Something on your mind, princess?” He doesn’t call him Pretty Boy in here, that name was for outside, a time before Billy had blood on his hands.

“I thought I would miss home more,” Steve says. “I don’t, isn’t that funny?”

“Maybe you outgrew the place,” Billy offers after a minute of silence. “Hawkins was a shit hole, everyone too busy minding their own business to take out the trash.” He lets his own tone turn bitter on the last words, because he knows the neighbors were aware of Neil’s idea of discipline, and overheard his screaming even if it was muffled by walls.

“No, I took a page out of your book,” Steve says and Billy swears his heart stops. He almost falls out of his bunk, catching himself at the last minute for a controlled thump of socked feet on concrete. He ignores the protest in his knees in favor of leaning over Steve.

“You did what?” Billy hisses and Steve pushes him back to sit up in his bed.

“I hunt monsters,” Steve says simply, like he’s discussing the weather. The smile on his face is out of place, sharp and almost feral in the low light. “You took care of yours. I heard it all over town, everywhere I went. I saw how easy it was, and then someone close to me got hurt so,” He shrugs as he trails off.

“I killed my father because he was an abusive jackass who had no problem hitting sixteen year old girls,” Billy summarizes in a flat voice. “I know I ruined Max’s life, but it needed to be done. I wouldn’t call it _easy_.” It wasn't, it was bloody and sometimes he still has nightmares. Max says she's forgiven him, is even thankful but Billy's still trying to forgive himself. Susan's scream still rings in his ears on bad nights.

“You think Neil was the only one who could get drunk and swing his fists?” Steve gives a hollow laugh. “You were so wrapped up in being the keg king and how fast your Camaro could go that you missed everything under the surface.”

There’s a cold tingling spreading throughout Billy’s body, chill settling into his bones. “What did you do, Steve?” He can hardly get the words out. This whole time, he’d thought Steve had taken some money from his daddy’s company and been called to the carpet for a look at the consequences. 

“I hunted monsters, Billy.” Steve repeats and drags the blanket up to his chin as he lays down again. His eyes shine in the light, dark and wide, staring through Billy. “It’s the only thing I’m good at. I’m too good, it turns out, so they locked me away. But it’s okay, I know there’s a lot of monsters in here too. You want to help?”


	2. Visitation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Max gets a visitation form in the mail, which is strange because her name is always on Billy's list. She opens the envelope and scans the page, seeing a name she hasn't thought about in years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have tweaked the first chapter slightly so I don't retcon myself: Max has the Camaro, she doesn't need the bus to visit and the Upside Down exists so I took off the "AU-No Supernatural" tag.
> 
> I wanted more Billy & Max in this prison story, and then Steve wanted to be there too. This is unbeta'd, so please let me know of any glaring grammatical or spelling errors.

Max lets the envelope sit on her desk for a full day before she pushes aside her essay and opens it. The penitentiary almost always calls if her brother has gotten himself put in SHU again, she knows there’s a note in his file. He doesn't want her wasting gas money or her time but Max also knows that some of the guards are dicks and don’t call just to watch her face fall when she gets to the door and learns. Max never tells him when that happens.

She opens the envelope and a familiar set of forms fall out. Max scans the pages, looking for the inmate name. She's still on Billy's approved visitor list, she saw him last week. It was a good visit, he had looked tired but managed a smile for her. They'd talked about her exam schedule and how frustrating roommates could be.

The forms are for Steve Harrington's visitor list and Max's mouth falls open as soon as her brain connects, remembers the high school graduate who fought off alien monster-dogs and gave her free ice cream the summer she first dated Lucas Sinclair.

She hasn't thought about him, or Hawkins, in years. Max can't live down memory lane, doesn't want to get trapped in a spiral of dark thoughts and screams. Her therapist has been a godsend, helping her to understand how living with Neil Hargrove had fucked her up - far more than watching Billy come apart one night as Max had held her throbbing cheek, pressed up against the wall.

Max blinks and comes back to herself, the present, after an indeterminable time. She can see the forms in front of her, her mug of coffee to her left, the sun setting out the window. She can smell the coffee, a lingering trace of her roommate's perfume and her own deodorant.

Steve Harrington, of all people, has come back into her life. She wonders if he believes in fate, too.

Max checks the box marked Yes, and mails them back.

The drive is long and too familiar, highways taking her past suburbs into the wild, scrub brush and gentle rolling hills. The sun is hot, baking into Max's skin as she walks down the path, surrounded by fences reaching up to the blue sky. Her skin goosebumps as soon as she's inside, because the air conditioning is cranked up.

"Hey Wanda," she greets the guard and takes the clipboard. She draws a line through all the No boxes about carrying weapons or drugs or conjugal visits. Her address hasn't changed, living in the same crummy apartment that a nearly broke graduate student can afford.

For the first time, she writes in two names on the line of who she's here to visit. Max smiles, looking at their names right next to each other in her rounded, loopy handwriting. She hands the clipboard back and listens to Wanda's exclamation of delight.

"Someone new? Who's this?" She already knows the story of Max and Billy, usually the one tasked with working visitor reception on Saturdays.

"Old friend, believe it or not." Max smiles and hopes it isn't a grimace.

"Don't get too involved, honey." Wanda warns her, blood red fingernail waving in the air. Max laughs.

"It won't be like that, I promise."

She takes a seat on a cold, hard bench and opens her folder of undergraduate papers that need grading. Wanda is kind enough to hold it for her at the desk when she goes in, sometimes flips through a textbook and plucks out the bolded words to give Max a pop quiz just for fun if it’s been a slow day and relatives aren’t wailing.

Max's name is called quickly today, but sometimes she's left sitting on the bench for hours. She slides the papers to Wanda through the window with a nod and follows the guard further into the prison. She glances around the room, not that it ever changes. Still a vending machine glowing in the corner and guards standing in the corner talking quietly.

Billy hugs her tight, longer than the allowed for three seconds. The guards don’t say anything and Max wonders what he traded to get that privilege. His fingers tap the table between them as they sit down and Max thinks about how to start the conversation. They speak at the same time:

"Do you remember-"  
"Steve's here."

Billy's voice is almost excited, like a kid who's spied something he shouldn't but wants it very badly.

Max stifles a smile. "So I guess you know," she says.

"He's my new cellmate, actually." Bill grins and it's brilliant, a smile so infrequent Max can count on one hand the number of times she's seen it on his face.

"I'm sure the neighbors must love your reunion," she comments in a dry tone. She doesn’t know everything, but Max realizes they must have at least been friends before. Maybe they were more, she knows Billy wasn’t picky about his partners when he’d had his freedom.

"No, nothing like that." Billy protests, intensity dimming but his mouth is still quirked up. He runs a hand through his hair, it's cut short enough that not even a hint of curl shows.

"Not yet," Max rolls her eyes. "The two of you were clearly something back in the day." That's how she refers to it, _back in the day_. They don't speak the name of the town, or talk about July 4th.

"Maybe," Billy allows and the smirk he wears is so familiar it makes Max's heart ache. "I will neither confirm nor deny."

"Ooh, look at you with the fancy lawyer talk!" Max crows in delight and rolls her eyes right back at him, sticking her tongue out for good measure like she's still a child annoyed at her older brother and not a woman in her mid-twenties.

"Shut up," Billy says but there's no heat behind it. "What's new with you?" He listens attentively to Max blather on about her course work, snotty students who expect her to do the work for them as their TA, the rain that felt like it wouldn't stop going on for days and how many new freckles Max finds when she even thinks about stepping outside. Billy laughs at the last part and Max feels proud she managed that.

They return to the subject of Steve Harrington right before Max leaves.

“You think it’ll work out? No knock down drag out fights this time?” Max asks, leaning forward.

Billy shrugs, scratching at the place where the scar is visible above his khaki collar. “He said it’s not his first time so at least I don’t have to ride his ass about how to behave. That’s an unexpected blessing.”

Max snorts and shakes her head. “Please don’t get in any fights. Take care of yourself, Billy.”

“I’m fine, Max. This is the best place for me.”

“Agree to disagree,” Max says, voice level. It’s an old argument and she doesn’t want to end ths on a sour note. She stands up and Billy gets to his feet a beat later. “Tell Steve I’m here, if he wants to visit today. He hasn’t called to say he got the forms back.”

“He did,” Billy tells her. He pulls her into a hug this time. “I’ll let him know, it might be an hour or so.”

“Okay, I have some grading left.” Max squeezes him tighter and he rests one hand on the back of her head to hold her close before the guards cough and it’s over.

She doesn’t watch his broad shoulders disappear around the corner, or look at her watch as she marks with a red pen all the wrong answers. Her handwriting gets messier as the time stretches on. She finishes crossing the t when Wanda gets her attention again.

“Steven agreed to see you,” and it takes Max a minute to realize of course the system would use his full name. She follows the same guard back to the room and feels a flash of surprise when she spies a familiar swoop of dark brown hair.

Max stops at the table as Steve stands. She raises an eyebrow at his bright grin, too bright for a place like this. He dims, dropping the expression at her flat stare. Max takes a seat across from him, hands clenched into fists in her lap under the table.

“Long time no see, Red,” Steve greets her like it hasn’t been years. Like they’re still friends.

Max scowls and Steve rears back, expression shocked. It stays on his face for an instant before he relaxes into the bland welcome he wore before she’d walked up the table. It’s a good reminder that she doesn’t know him, if she ever did.

“You asked to meet,” Steve speaks again and Max takes a deep breath.

“Is it fate or just an unlucky coincidence you’re here, cellmates of all things?” Max asks. It comes out of her mouth before she really thinks about it.

“Fate has always liked playing with us,” Steve muses and he rubs the side of his neck. There’s a faint scar, a pinprick with a story that he had never shared with the kids after the mall’s destruction. He turns to look at Max directly, brown eyes dark and face earnest.

“I’m not gonna get Billy in trouble, if that’s what you’re worried about. You know we settled everything ages ago, we’re cool.”

“So cool you ended up here,” Max says sarcastically. “Right, _cool_.”

“It’s boring but I’d still take khaki over a sailor’s uniform,” Steve jokes and Max laughs before she can stop herself. Steve looks pleased and Max glares but they both know the ice is thawing between them.

“Dustin gonna come here?”

“No.” Steve’s answer is swift. “I haven’t talked to him in a while, actually. You?”

“I keep in touch with El, send her postcards sometimes.” Max admits. “They haven’t been returned undelivered so far.”

“That’s good,” Steve says, and they fall silent again. In the corner, there’s rapid fire Spanish and exclamations that seem happier more than angry. Steve cocks his head and Max wonders if he understands what they’re saying, where he would have picked up a foreign language. In her head, Steve and the rest of the party are still in Indiana, looking the same as they did on the day of her high school graduation. The last day she saw them, before she packed up the Camaro that’s now hers and drove west. Drove home.

She can feel Steve’s eyes studying her, and turns to face him. He’s older, obviously, faint lines on his forehead and the corners of his eyes, his mouth. Max is pretty sure one of those means he’s laughed a lot, which makes her glad. His hair still does the same stupid swoop like it did, slightly flattened without product. 

“You need anything?” Steve asks quietly and Max’s head jerks up from where she had been staring without focusing on what, on who was in front of her.

“Isn’t that my line?” Max cracks, a tiny smile playing on her lips. “At least, that’s usually what I ask Billy before we’re done.”

Steve smiles back, and it’s gentle. “I’m asking you, Max.” Her name sounds strange in his mouth, like he’s said it before, the name of a dear friend. “I have money, that’s not my problem.”

“I don’t need anything from you,” Max spits before she can think about her words, again. She doesn’t want pity from him, not ever.

“Okay,” Steve says, and his tone is still so gentle. She feels like a teenager again, sitting in front of him and having him ask her what he can do for her. It’s a conversation they had when she couldn’t sleep for nightmares about demogorgons and then again when Billy was healing, snarling at everyone in sight except Steve.

“Right,” Max nods her head and stands up. It’s a long drive back and everyone else around her is standing, crying, hugging the prisoner they came to visit. Steve and she stand feet apart, hands at their sides. “Don’t drag my brother into fights, please.” She glares to make her point and Steve shakes his head with a rueful chuckle.

“I promise I’ll be a picture of good behavior. You visit every month?” he asks. “Or every other?”

Max shrugs. “Depends on the month. At least every other.”

“Let me know-” Steve starts and is cut off by the shout to step away, line up.

Steve gives a little wave before he turns the corner, like he knows he’ll see her again soon. Max waves back and is taken back to the waiting room, her student papers, her life in the sunshine.


End file.
